U.S. News and World Report, in an effort to stay relevant, likes to rate things. Given our current obsession with education, namely paying and preparing for it, colleges and high schools are an easy target. Normal people would be happy to have their school receive the ambiguously defined “silver medal,” but in Hanover it’s apparently cause for criticism.

According to Hanover’s resident pack of fools, our success as a school is determined by the fact that we’re all apparently very rich. Yes, that’s absolutely it: our parents all gave us the best brains that money can buy.

True, we’re not your average town, but we’re not all future Fortune-500 CEOs. It’s a little irritating to hear that I only have good grades because of my parents’ jobs, but I can’t imagine how much worse this is for the teachers.

I’ve had a fair sampling of public schools, and I have to say that the teachers at Hanover High are far better than the teachers at my past schools. However, by insinuating that Hanover’s success is due to its wealth, these people have bashed our teachers. Would Mr. Bonfiglio or Mr. Hackman be worse teachers if their students’ parents were maids or mechanics?

It’s a mark of how twisted our society is that while we’re the most affluent country in history, we’re still hypocritical enough to believe that we’re edgy and cool by railing on the successful. Rent, a musical glorifying the starving artist and deriding everything done for profit, is a multi-million dollar franchise that’s had its logo plastered on every conceivable piece of merchandise.

Maybe it's just the American way; we root, for Seabiscuit while in reality we’re War Admiral.